3.1. Minimalism Strategy

In a white paper on Minimalism R. Srinath defines it as a methodology for eliminating disruptions: “The Minimalist manufacturing architecture embraces the entire spectrum of manufacturing, innovation, practice, and technique in such a way as to minimize not only information overlap, but also individual information requirements. It begins by redefining what have traditionally been viewed as manufacturing’s problems—high rework and reject rates, low throughput and first pass yield, extensive work-in-process, excessive inventory— as symptomatic of, or consequent to, a single problem—disruptions.”⁴⁴

The key enablers for this were defined by R. Jaikumar in his minimalistic architecture of manufacturing. “Statistical process control, numerical control, computer-aided design and manufacturing, computer-integrated and just-in-time manufacturing, process reengineering, and total quality management – all operationalise information towards the end of making a manufacturing process more adaptable, precise, stable, or versatile.” He also emphasises, that “control mechanisms should be the minimum needed to preserve stability and ensure precision”.⁴⁵

This concept clearly targets the manufacturing process and how to improve it directly at the work floor and is thus exclusively concerned with disruptions that are defined as changes in system variables (instantaneous state changes, drifts, or periodic effects). 46 However, the basic principles of a minimalism strategy might also be applicable for R&D in order to generate a competitive advantage for the value chain activity by providing more reliable innovation outcome. Especially, the “experimental lot principles” 47 appear to be also very valid during product innovation and development in R&D, as these “E-lots” focus on collecting only relevant data, understanding the difference between real problems and statistical noise, and justification of exceeding the edge of failure in some cases to foster learning and systematic understanding.

As R. Srinath says, “today, we are in the era of knowledge-based competition. We must increase our knowledge about our current process in order to make them more stable, more robust. The iterative approach to be followed leads to a positive spiral of: stabilizing the process, reducing the need for human interventions, focusing on problems (through management by exception), increasing the knowledge about the process.”⁴⁸

This is especially true for R&D and the development of new products where the summary statements of Minimalism seem to be fitting perfectly. Minimalism generates a real value proposition by building “sustainable Knowledge Management Processes” to achieve “continuous improvement with reduced capital expenditures.” and release “hidden capacities by synchronizing processes to the bottleneck requirements.” R. Srinath also points out that eventually solving the problem and not just fixing it improve throughput and quality. Using a Minimalism approach this can be achieved more efficiently by “focussing on disruptions and stopping them from propagating”⁴⁹

⁴⁴ Srinath; White Paper on Minimalism; 2011
⁴⁵ Jaikumar; When More is Less: A Minimalist Architecture for Manufacturing; p 433-441
⁴⁶ Srinath; White Paper on Minimalism; 2011
⁴⁷ Jaikumar; When More is Less: A Minimalist Architecture for Manufacturing; p 433-441
⁴⁸ Srinath; Basic Philosophy of Minimalism; 2011; slide 45
⁴⁹ Srinath; Value Proposition of Minimalism; 2011; slides 49-50